The appointment is another feather in the cap of the Los Angeles institution that in 2007 was on the brink of closure before the Eli and Edyth Broad Foundation bailed it out with a $30-million challenge grant. Since then some 23 new and returning trustees have been added to the board, including Wallis Annenberg, Laurence Graff, Steven T. Mnuchin, Catherine Opie, Victor Pinchuk and Darren Star.

Among Cohen's holdings, which range from Impressionism to contemporary art, is de Kooning's Woman III (1952–53), purchased in 2006 for about $137.5 million from entertainment mogul David Geffen. From 2007 to 2010, the Steven and Alexandra Cohen Collection loaned Damien Hirst's notorious shark tank, The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living, whose 13-foot tiger shark in formaldehyde had to be replaced due to decay.